Two Principles in Negotiating with Nanjing
(April 1, 1937, 2:00 A.M.)
An Elegiac Address in Honor
of the Yellow Emperor
(April 5, 1937)
[Peng] Xuefeng:


1. When negotiating with Nanjing, with regard to the Red Army and the
soviet areas, the principle is to ensure our absolute leadership; with regard to the
relationship between the two parties, the principle is to ensure our party's independence. Concerning these aspects, we absolutely cannot compromise. The
other side has already more or less agreed.


2. Nanjing has not at all laid down the condition that Mao must go abroad.¹
The news from North China has been wrongly reported.


Mao Zedong


The Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic has sent a special
delegate to honor the tomb of the Yellow Emperor and hold a national tombsweeping ceremony. The Soviet Government, on behalf of all citizens within the
soviet areas and for the purpose of paying respect to the first ancestor of the
Chinese nation, and expressing its resolute determination to be forerunners in
fighting to resist Japan and save the nation from perishing, and to strive for the
realization of national unity, has specially sent a delegate on the 5th to take part
in the ceremony. The original text of the elegiac address is recorded below:


On April 5, the twenty-sixth year of the Republic of China, the chairman of
the Soviet Government, Mao Zedong, and the commander-in-chief of the
People's Anti-Japanese Red Army, Zhu De, have reverently delegated Lin Zuhan
to memorialize in the traditional manner with flowers and silks at the tomb of the
Yellow Emperor, our Chinese nation's first ancestor.


You, our illustrious ancestor,
founded our nation of China;
how numerous your descendants and prosperous your state,
how lofty the mountains and vast the rivers.
Full of intelligence and far-sighted wisdom,
your glorious reign reached even the barren lands;
you have built this great nation,
standing grandly in the East.
Changes in the world have come over time,
and leaders stumble and fall;
after several thousand years,
our powerful neighbor disdains virtue.
The Ryukyus and Taiwan have been lost,
Korea lies in ruins;
Liaoning, Rehe, northern and southern Hebei,
are overrun with Chinese traitors!
Our source for this text is Wenxian he yanjiu, No. 4 (1985) (p. 213 of the annual volume).

--- Notes

1. Chiang Kaishek did, however, suggest this in his meeting of June 4, 1937, with
Zhou Enlai. See above, the Introduction.
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 5, pp. 67-68, where it is reproduced from Xin Zhonghua bao, April 6, 1937.